The holiday season is over. It’s time to get back to the hard realities of the corporate world.

You are not happy? But how can a bird not be happy to get back to its old nest after a 15 day migration break? Well, for starters because the bird does not have to reply to 500 new e-mails!

The first few days of the vacation were good. A day towards the middle of the vacation you did comprehend not going back to work at all. But then there was a time when you knew you HAD to be back for good. And now that you are back, you meet your colleagues and share stories about the ‘vacation’. Everyone greets everyone with a smile and a ‘Happy New Year’. The first half of the day passes in pleasantries and you have only counted the number of unanswered mails in your box.

Post some more stories and a familiar lunch (in the office cafeteria you missed while on break), you get back to your mailbox. Scan Scan Scan. You first scan for mails from your boss. Going by the number of mails he has sent, you doubt the ‘happy family pictures’ on his cabin walls. You scan some more to realize 30% of the mails are spams Delete Delete Delete. 65% of the mails are just ‘for information’. You finally are relieved to find that you just have to respond to only 10 mails. The rest of the day you reply to these mails and are satisfied to have got some job done. Just before leaving office, you once again check the vacation pictures you uploaded online yesterday. You send the link to a few ‘friends’. The Day 1 of ‘Back to the Grind’ is over!